Hunger strike

[hoax]

My 09 pastel boy Jack has been off feed since the middle of December. I feed all my BP's ASF's. I did have them all on paper in September I wanted to try aspen shaving's but in November I went back to paper for breeding season. Every one was doing well being back on paper. I started my breeding season late in November. I paired him up with my pastel female got a lock gave him a few days off fed him, gave him a few more days and put him in with my het albino female whom we locked with. I did the same off routine and then put him back in with my pastel female, I checked on them daily and about two days after I put him in with her I found a NASTY poop so I separated and cleaned them. Since then my boy hasn't eaten.

I have offered F/T, a rat, and I offer him an ASF weekly on schedule. I wasn't really worried about him as he wasn't losing weight. I have 2 other 09s that I got in the same shipment as my pastel boy, they both have been eating and have grown to about 1350g and Jack (my pastel) was staying around 700-715g but this week when I weighed him he had lost 15g from last week.

I am starting to really worry about this boy, he is thin but doesn't look unhealthy he is active alert and strong.

Please any advice on what to do. I am going to go get him an adult mouse and see if he might take that. Other then that I don't know what to do.

Any help would be really really appreciated.

Mike

[boasandballs]

When my BP's go off feed for an extended period of time I change their food. I would suggest a mouse or a live rat (small). Sometimes size intimidates them.

[muddoc]

15 gram weight loss is only about 2% of his body weight. That is easily passed in the form of urates and/or liquid. Males will frequently squirt urates and other waste all over a females tub when introduced, and that could be the reason for the weight loss. I would continue to offer what you have always fed, and he will eat again when he is ready. He may not be eating, because he is spending all of his waking time hunting for females to breed.

[hoax]

I am going to offer him a mouse next week see if that piques his interest. You might be right about him thinking of the ladies. I have only had my snakes for a year so I am still learning a lot and this is my first hunger strike.

Mike

[zombieon3rd]

I had the same problem up until last week. A Normal Female had been off feed for about 4 months. So I took her out of her tub in my rack system and placed her in a 29 Gal. Tank for a few days. Still no luck on feeding.

I moved her back to her tub in the rack and the next time I offered her food BAM!!!! she took it. She has eaten 2 more times since. Everything is the same except the change of venue for 3 days. It could be a simple as she was finally hungry.

[Miko]

There are a few different things you can do. If he doesn't take the live mouse, keep the mouse and kill it and expose the brain. Then take tongs and have it do somewhat of a dance. Sometimes it helps if you put the ball python in a box for a while where it's nice and dark, then open the box and give it the prey.

Before feeding live please stun the rodent first to ensure the safety of your ball python. Use something like tweezers or tongs to pull the head of the rodent away if it seems like it's going to start biting your ball python. We wouldn't want him to get hurt!

Sometimes gerbils can strike interest in your snake because it is more closely related to what they eat in the wild. If you do not want to feed a gerbil, you can ask a pet store if you can use some soiled gerbil bedding to rub another rodent or prey item in.

Some ball pythons have a preference between mice and rats, perhaps baby rats might make your snake eat. However, those are hard to get live unless you're the one who breeds them. This is all I can really think of doing, you can combine methods or take away some things. It really depends on your ball python, because they're really picky sometimes.

Good Luck.